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The Man and the Tiger

A man walking across a field encountered a tiger. The man fled, running as fast as he could go, with the tiger chasing fiercely after him. The man came to the edge of the field. It was a cliff! He leaned over the edge of the cliff, grabbed a vine, and swung down against the cliff face. The tiger appeared above him, sniffing and pawing and never taking its eyes from him as it paced above his head. Terrified, the man looked down, far below to the bottom of the cliff, to see if there might be some means of escape that way. But what was this? Another tiger had appeared and was looking up at him, swishing its tail and licking its chops, waiting for him to fall! Just then, two mice—one black and one white—emerged from cracks in the cliff face. The mice skittered about, sniffing, and then, with tiny bites, began to gnaw away at the vine the man was hanging from. A little distance away, the man spied a beautiful, ripe strawberry growing on the cliff face. Grasping the vine in one hand, he reached over, plucked the strawberry, and popped it into his mouth. It was delicious!